How do you handle sugar after a detox?
 

I've been battling some health issues and my doctor suggested I eliminate all sugar and processed foods from my diet. I already eat organic the majority of the time and eat a pretty clean diet, but I was indulging in too much sugar, albeit organic sugar, in my coffee and tea and snacking on sweets like chocolate, etc. way too much. I'm eating fruit, just not refined sugar and sweeteners. I haven't eaten artificial sweeteners for 3 years now.

I've been doing this for 10 days and I've noticed improvements in my health already. I went through sugar withdrawals and was light headed for quite a few days and I went through some fatigue.

I'm losing weight faster than I ever have before and I'm not hungry at all because I'm eating all the time, just healthy whole foods.

I haven't decided how long I'm going to stay on a sugar fast. Maybe a few weeks.

I don't envision a life where I never bake cookies with my kids again or eat birthday cake at a party. But I don't know how to handle sugar in my life. How do you eat just enough to satisfy? I don't know how much is enough because I have overeaten for so long. I don't want to be in this mode of deprivation and then go nuts when I finally get some cookies.

And also since I went through sugar withdrawals, will I feel awful when I finally do eat some homemade cookies again? The withdrawals suck and I really don't want to do that all over again.

Great lecture on sugar - Sugar, the Bitter Truth -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

After the first couple of weeks of South Beach diet (which bans sugar and fruit in "phase 1"), I had a cheat day. I ate a couple of servings of cookies with refined sugar in them. Ooooh, they tasted good!
But... (there's always a "but") they sat in my stomach, made me feel nauseous, and then I had some issues in the bathroom. I have been staying on diet and away from refined sugar, ever since. I do well with small amounts of honey or agave nectar, though.

Really, why go back to something that makes you sick ? You really don't HAVE to bake cookies with your children....do you? There tons of other fun things to do .... art, play games....

If you go back to 'sugar', you'll go back to the health issues and the weight.

Sugar is bad. Processed foods are bad. Eat clean, eat healthy, have a good life with your kids....

I don't bake cookies with my kids, they're not missing anything.

Sugar makes me feel like complete and utter crap. I don't envision a life where my kids have to watch that happen to me ;). They'd much rather eat clean with me. We choose health.

We're eating berries for dessert and they were just as happy to help me spoon them into the bowls, as they would have been to help me make cookies! There are TON Of other things you can do with your kids that don't involve making garbage foods to eat.

It's been about 8 weeks since I went off sugar. I had withdrawals and felt really light headed for about 12 days. I've had a couple of sweets and I was fine. I was worried that I would be biting the bullet being off sugar and the first time I ate one piece of chocolate I would lose it and go crazy, but I didn't.

I have been reading a book about changing your mindset about food and getting out of the mindset of deprivation. I adopted the attitude that I can eat sweets but I'm choosing not to. It's a small thing but for someone who has been in a deprivation then binge pattern for years and years it's a big accomplishment.

The sugar didn't make me feel awful at all. It didn't make me feel great either but I enjoyed it and I moved on and went right back to not having sugar as a regular part of my daily life. On the few days I did eat something with sugar I was more tired the next day for sure.

I have come to enjoy the increased energy I have when refined sugar isn't part of my daily diet and I like that I have hardly any PMS now. It's totally worth it.

But I do think it's important to bake cookies with my kids. I don't believe that homemade cookies made with organic ingredients are "garbage" food. I think that it's hard to maintain extreme lifestyles and mental attitudes about food forever and research bears that out every single time they do a study. I've been seeing a nutritionist and she said "Sugar isn't the poison. It's the DOSE people are taking." I did some reading about how much sugar people consumed a few decades ago and what they consume now and it's staggering how we have put that stuff in everything!

Going off of it and clearing my head has been really freeing. It doesn't have the hold on me it once had.

That was my thought. My daughter loves to help me cook, no matter what it is. She likes to help me cut, mix, measure, etc AND she's more excited to eat our meal because she had a part in making it.

I always drink my tea without milk or sugar. It might not taste good at the begining, but you will get used to it and not look back.

What makes a cake or cookie unhealthy is the combination of fat AND refined sugar. I've had them once in a week, but keeping my diet low on fat in between in order to clean my blood from altering the transport of sugar toward the cells. No problem whatsoever.

I haven't had sugar since June 2 and now that it's out of my system, I don't physically crave it anymore. I went through the initial phase where the thought of never having sweets again seemed unbearable but now I mostly feel like I'm getting so much more from giving up the sugar. I feel better than I've felt in a long long time. There's no cookie or cake that would be worth giving up what I've got now.

I can see both sides about the great cookie debate..I grew up in a very healthy household, my parents worked hard to make sure my sister and I ate well and exercised daily. I do remember though, one of my fondest memories with my Mom, rolling out the cookie dough while it snowed in Colorado, smearing flour on each other and laughing our butts off. We had such a great balance, I was NOT overweight until my PCOS symptoms started and I was ignorant to it and lived on my own. I have done this to myself, on my own. I do believe you can have the best of both worlds. Besides there are some REALLY tasty gluten/sugar free cookie recipes out there! Good luck everyone!

I love tea and I use lemon juice for flavor, I use a LOT and it usually ends up tasting like lemon tea haha! Good thing I love the taste!:dizzy: